Stuck
by Maria Wilde
Summary: In which Jeff never goes to Greendale, and ends up trapped in an elevator with a girl who makes him feel like Noah Calhoun.


He can't help but keep an eye on her when she enters the elevator. She's young, probably in college, with bright doe eyes and neat brown hair that rests on her shoulders. She's wearing a black pencil skirt that stops above her knees, paired with a blue blouse and a white cardigan that barely contains her chest.

She moves to stand beside him and he immediately reverts to texting (even though there's no one on the other end). He can't help but wonder if she lives here.

_How long has she lived here? _

He's never once made an effort to get to know the neighbors but he feels like he'd remember her and the way she maintains such perfect posture. He also feels like he'd remember this feeling in the pit of his stomach... butterflies? No, _that's complete bullshit_.

The doors finally open to his floor, the ring that sounds brings him out of his temporary dream state. A man whose presence he hasn't even noticed exits, and for some reason he finds himself still standing in the same spot when the doors close.

He wants to see what floor she's going to. He wants to know her name and her favorite movie and the things she cares about the most. But he convinces himself that he's been an idiot and that what he's feeling is meaningless so he lets out a groan when the elevator comes to an abrupt stop and the alarm goes off above them.

He's been trapped on one of these things before. The elevator in his condo is fucked and no one's done anything about it.

Usually he's agitated when he's trapped in one of these things but now he's just on edge, worried about what this girl is gonna think of him. Yes, cocky Jeff Winger is _knowingly_ _worried what someone will think of him_.

"Darn it," she somehow squeals under her breath, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before folding her arms across his chest. She leans back into the wall and presses her lips into a thin line.

"This happens all the time." He finds himself saying, even though he makes it a rule not to talk to strange women outside of cocktail parties or sleazy bars. "Do you have somewhere you need to be?"

She looks back at him, looking a bit unsettled but quickly reverting back to a somewhat neutral facial expression. "No, but this whole thing will force me to rewrite my daily planner."

"Your daily planner?" He repeats with a smirk, leaning back beside her, watching as her eyes dart to all corners before she meets his gaze.

"Yes, I keep a daily planner to prevent chaos." She explains further, although she doesn't quite know why she's giving this information away to some guy in an elevator. "I was supposed to unpack all my clothes today."

"So you're new here?"

"Yes."

"And you keep a _daily planner_?"

Her lips open slightly to say something, before she closes them again and huffs as he chuckles lightly.

She's starting to hate being trapped in here with him. He looks upwards of 30 and there's more product in his caramel colored hair than she'd prefer, but he's undeniably cute and that bothers her because he seems like a jerk.

"What's your name?" He asks cautiously, even though his mind is telling him to stop talking to this girl. He'll do something stupid, or say something stupid... or think something stupid.

She hesitates before answering, "Annie, and you?"

"Jeff," he answers right away, almost embarrassingly quickly. "Jeff Winger."

"We'll have you out of there in a few hours!" The landlord whose name no one cares enough to learn yells from above them, poking his out from the shaft at the penthouse floor.

"A few hours! Are you fucking kidding me?" Jeff yells back, noting the way Annie's hands twitch when he starts to cuss. "We've been in here for 20 minutes and I want to go home! You're such a piece of-"

Then he leaves, his head is out of view and Jeff throws his head back against the wall, stretching his legs out farther in front of him. They're both sat beside each other at this point, propped up against the large mirror that covers the back wall.

Annie's stomach begins to growl, causing her to place a hand over it and let a small moan escape her lips. Although she's keeping up her posture and holding back a pout she's getting aggravated, and her mind is jumbling with thoughts in an effort to rearrange her day.

"Are you hungry?" Jeff asks with a smirk, watching as her fingers drum along the area where her skirt meets her blouse.

She shakes her head back and forth. They haven't said much to each other since he introduced himself, mostly because she's not in the mood to talk to someone who seems as douchey as he does.

"I can have someone bring us something." He offers, pulling out his phone from the front pocket of his jeans.

"No thanks," she waves him off, tilting her head slightly to the side, trying not to think about how she desperately wants the pasta that's waiting for her on the counter.

"You're hungry."

"But I'm not _starving_."

He turns to face her until she finally lets herself look back at him. "I'm getting us food."

She doesn't protest because something about the tone of his voice tells her it wouldn't help.

"Jeff!"

"Duncan!"

"Professor Duncan?"

"Annie?"

"You two know each other?" Jeff looks down at Annie and back up at his friend, who's holding a plastic bag with a few balloons tied onto it.

Annie nods slowly, physically uncomfortable, even though he's nowhere near her.

She took one of his classes, but his eyes wandered too much and he often showed up drunk so she dropped it right away. It messed up her four year plan but her friend (and part-time enemy) Annie Kim said that it was the right choice.

Although, she suspects that it was just a plan to assure that there was no competition for valedictorian.

"What'd you get us?" Jeff asks as Duncan lets go of the bag, letting it float down slowly until it lands to rest on Jeff's lap.

"It'll suffice." He assures them before leaving their sight. His footsteps bounce off the walls as he makes his way out of the building, eyeing a hot blonde on his way out.

"How do you know that guy?" Jeff asks as unties the balloons, letting them escape to the ceiling.

He almost wants to grin at the way Annie watches them with childish wonderment in her eyes, but he decides against it.

"He teaches at my..." her body almost rejects the words that come next. "... community college."

She's expecting him to make fun of her, make another joke that pushes her over the edge, insert the words 'daily planner' in there somehow, but he only nods, cussing under his breath when he sees that Duncan brought them ramen noodles that you need to put water in to eat.

"You don't have anything to say about this?" She raises an eyebrow.

He looks up at her, back down at the bag, then squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, letting out a sigh of frustration before confessing, "I go to community college, too."

"What? Really?"

"Yeah."

"But you look like you're-"

"35." He cuts her off, afraid she'll overshoot and make him feel older than he already does. "Long story short, if I wanna continue being a super awesome lawyer I have to get an actual degree."

"Oh," she nods. "Of course you're a lawyer."

He lets himself chuckle at the smug, knowing look plastered on his face. "What's that supposed to mean?" He attempts to seem offended.

"Well, it just means that... _of course you're a lawyer_." She repeats as her cheeks flush with crimson. "I mean, you've got that cocky grin and you challenge everything said to you and you have a weird need to comment on everything. Of course you're a lawyer."

"You've got me all figured out, don't you?" He tries his best to keep his voice stable but he's choking up at the way her bodies leaning towards him, very close, he can almost feel her breath on his neck and-

She shrugs her shoulder, reaches over his lap, into the bag, and gropes around until her fingers land to rest on a 6 pack. She eyes it suspiciously, and for some reason he knows that she's not the type to enjoy a beer at the end of a long, shitty day.

"Drink one." He urges her, mostly because he wants to know if she'll actually do it.

She purses her lips, she's never been a huge drinker and she's underage... but something about this man makes her hand reach out, grab a bottle and pop the cap off without giving it a second thought.

She takes another swig from her 3rd... 4th bottle. She wouldn't know.

She's happily buzzed and he's still on his 1st beer, trying not to make it obvious how much of an effect it has when she rests her head on his shoulder.

"So, what's Greendale like?" He finds himself asking, even though he's not at all interested. He's just trying really hard not to focus on her leg against his.

"It's nice, the dean's a bit weird and my Spanish teacher is definitely out there... but it's nice." She tells him, dragging her words along as she speaks. "This guy I knew from high school... Troy... he goes there, too. We have lunch sometimes."

Suddenly, he feels a pang of jealously hit him and he wants to smack himself for it. He doesn't know much about this girl, and he doesn't know anything about Troy but he doesn't like the mention of his name. The need to always be easy going, however, forces him to press further.

"I'm guessing you like him."

"Well," she trails off, humming an obscure tune while thoughts of her high school crush flood her mind. "Maybe."

He nods, and sips the beer back. "You know, we still haven't touched the food."

"He brought us buttered noodles." She giggles, and suddenly thoughts of Troy transform into thoughts of... Abed?

Yes, that's his name, and she remembers him bringing a pack in almost every day for lunch.

"Oh, right." Jeff blushes as her fingers move up to drum against his leg.

To her, the action is instinctive and she's not quite aware that she's doing it, but it makes every part of his body heat up and he just wants to reach over and touch her... but her gaze is set on the elevator doors and she seems miles away.

"I'm beginning to think that the landlord is merely an illusion." Jeff groans as her feet move up further against the wall, her head on the floor, even though on a regular day she'd probably be concerned at how dirty it is.

She can't bring herself to move her hand a few inches away, where her phone is. She has a few texts from Annie Kim, and one from a blonde girl in her Spanish class that's probably just pestering her for answers to the homework. She'd rather not see what time it is, she'd rather not worry about all the things she has to get done.

"You should come to Greendale." She tells him out of the blue, it sounds more like a firm demand than a suggestion and he melts at her words even if they may only be the result of her intoxication.

"Why?" He presses, mostly because he wants to hear her say that she wants him around. "I'm doing fine at City College."

"Yes, but..." she trails off, searching for a reason that won't make it seem like she's desperate for his company. But she is, so the only words she can muster are, "Just come to Greendale."

He turns his head to the side, running his eyes along her long legs, holding back a laugh when she attempts to pull her skirt up to a respectable length, only to have it slide back down to a point just above her crotch.

The a/c stopped working at some point. He's removing his sweater, revealing the thin tank top underneath that kind of sort of makes her swoon like a love struck schoolgirl. She's tossed her cardigan to the side, ignoring how the white fabric is collecting dust at an alarming rate.

"Is this what hell feels like?" She asks through hurried breaths, the effect of the beers haven worn off at this point.

"I somehow don't think that's where you'd end up." He jokes, causing her breath to catch in her throat and he feels like slapping himself because he basically called her heavenly and that's _cheesy as fuck_.

"What's your story?" She asks, crossing her legs, shifting so they're sitting directly across from each other, much too close but somehow not close enough.

He shrugs his shoulders. "I told you. I'm a lawyer trying to make up for my fake degree."

"That's not it." She shakes her head frantically, trying to ignore the beads of sweat forming on her forehead that she's starting to think aren't a result of the rising temperatures.

"Oh really?" He rolls his eyes, a bit afraid of what she's trying to figure out.

"You're a player, probably, you focus too much on appearances, and I'm guessing you're closed off emotionally." She examines his body, his chest, his arms... other places. When he doesn't say anything, she continues. "You seem like that type. There's too much gel in your hair and your clothes seem like they're way overpriced and made in Milan. Are you hiding something from the world?"

"How do you read people like that?" He counters, cutting her off because he's afraid she'll say more, dig deeper, force him to have some dramatic epiphany.

"I'm a particularly observant person." She replies. "Not a lot people make an effort to figure me out so I entertain myself by trying to figure them out."

"Alright, then let me take a guess." He says, still holding eye contact, waiting until one of them looks away, but neither of them does. "You're a dreamer. You think things will always work out even when they don't. You take a lot of shit and you can put up with it because you always see the light at the end of the tunnel. You've probably been through a lot, possibly a mental breakdown at the realization that not everything goes according to plan, but you hold onto your drive. You hold onto your daily planner."

Her lips part slightly at the remark, first she thinks that she's gonna retort, fight the claims, but she finds herself moving closer at a painfully slow place, he does the same without a word and in the silent, dark, hot elevator their faces are only inches apart.

Then the doors open.


End file.
